Peter Arnott: Two Plays. Peter Arnott

that young man was so compelling! And I was young, then, too!

      (In her memory, the tour begins. She joins them as COOPER speaks.)

      COOPER If there were one thing that would do more than any other to transform life in this city…it is water!

      (Street sounds. They stand in a dark entrance way.)

      MRS EASTON (In the moment, in the past.) Water! Such a simple thing and in such plentiful supply in these latitudes. One would have thought.

      (Laughs.)

      COOPER (Humourless.) A water supply tae meet the needs ae hygiene in the lower town would revolutionise hundreds of lives in this street alone, Mrs Easton. With water, their chances of decency, of virtue, of rising above animality, exist. Without it, they do not.

      REVEREND EASTON The cost to the city, Dr Cooper, would be prohibitive.

      COOPER What is the cost of not trying, Reverend? What is the cost to these folk of existing as they do? What is the cost to our souls of blinking at their misery?

      (He gestures that they enter the darkness…they do…shadows overwhelm them…COOPER lights a lamp.)

      MRS EASTON It was like walking into the mouth of hell as we stepped into the close…one’s eyes stung…watering at the devil’s breath. I had to steel myself, recover my balance…lean against a wall dripping with the condensing perspiration of all the souls within.

      (In live action, MRS EASTON reacts to the smell.)

      Oh!

      (Then narrating.)

      The smell…I’m sorry…but it’s what I most remember. It got into my nostrils and has never left them. I can smell it even now. Nothing smells as bad as poverty.

      (COOPER continues ‘live’ as they climb stone stairs. Sound FX.)